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Recent Posts

I am looking into putting up some secondary glazing to help dull out neighbours and their dogs. The windows I am looking at doing are around 2.2M x 1.2M (7.2ft x 4ft). Now I see the ideal thickness of acrylic is 3/8 of an inch, using this thickness will be over 30KG (66lb) per sheet, will the magnet around all the edges be able to hold this weight or will I need to build a shelf to support it?

Also if it's only for neighbour/dogs will I get away with a thinner sheet or should I just go straight to 3/8"? (the air gap will be roughly 105mm (4"))

In order to reduce impact noise you have to decouple somewhere.. either the ceiling below or the floor above..in the end as you can see decoupling is the only principle that provides the best perceived reduction of impact.

also remember if you decouple from the ceiling you could have some slight impact coming from the walls after the project is complete..normally in the field I find this to be minimum.

This community is awesome. I have read numerous stories and learned a lot, my only regret is not finding this website sooner :-o

My story/request:

I have a duplex, which is split level and is of brick construction (exterior walls) and solid wooden joists. I live in the bottom portion and rent out the top. The entire upstairs is carpeted/padded except for the kitchen. The kitchen happens to be above my bedroom. In the past this was not a problem, but my new tenants work late (dont come home til 10-11) and then they are stomping around in the kitchen. I have talked to them about being quite and honestly I am not even sure if its them at this point or just the poor construction. Once I realized this problem I scrambled to fix it in several attempts.

Attempt 1: I cut holes at every joist and blew in insulation. This worked good for the airbone noises. I could not really hear anyone talking or any noise like that. However, I could still hear them walking around and dropping things.

Attempt 2: I found out about Green Glue and read that adding mass to the ceiling would lessen the vibrations. So, I added two layers of 5/8 drywall to the ceiling with green glue sandwiched in between. This helped a bit, but not a dramatic improvement. Airborne noises are virtually non existent, but the impact noises were still easily heard.

Attempt 3: I asked the tenants to let me know when they were going on vacation and I would do some improvements upstairs. The kitchen floor was porceline tile, which was on cement board that was screwed directly to the wooden subfloor - no underlayment. So what I did while there were gone was I installed a floating lament floor on top of the tile floor. I used a premium wool underlayment underneath the floating floor, which claimed high IIC numbers. This seemed to work well. It definitely dampened the impact noise but I can still hear it. Its not terrible, but I have become fixated on figure this out once and for all.

So that takes me to today. I am not sure where I should attack this problem from now. Should I installed a vinyl floor on top of the floating with a better underlayment? Should I throw in the towel on my bedroom ceiling and do a decoupled ceiling? Any suggestions on what would be the best approach?

This community is awesome. I have read numerous stories and learned a lot, my only regret is not finding this website sooner :-o

My story/request:

I have a duplex, which is split level and is of brick construction (exterior walls) and solid wooden joists. I live in the bottom portion and rent out the top. The entire upstairs is carpeted/padded except for the kitchen. The kitchen happens to be above my bedroom. In the past this was not a problem, but my new tenants work late (dont come home til 10-11) and then they are stomping around in the kitchen. I have talked to them about being quite and honestly I am not even sure if its them at this point or just the poor construction. Once I realized this problem I scrambled to fix it in several attempts.

Attempt 1: I cut holes at every joist and blew in insulation. This worked good for the airbone noises. I could not really hear anyone talking or any noise like that. However, I could still hear them walking around and dropping things.

Attempt 2: I found out about Green Glue and read that adding mass to the ceiling would lessen the vibrations. So, I added two layers of 5/8 drywall to the ceiling with green glue sandwiched in between. This helped a bit, but not a dramatic improvement. Airborne noises are virtually non existent, but the impact noises were still easily heard.

Attempt 3: I asked the tenants to let me know when they were going on vacation and I would do some improvements upstairs. The kitchen floor was porceline tile, which was on cement board that was screwed directly to the wooden subfloor - no underlayment. So what I did while there were gone was I installed a floating lament floor on top of the tile floor. I used a premium wool underlayment underneath the floating floor, which claimed high IIC numbers. This seemed to work well. It definitely dampened the impact noise but I can still hear it. Its not terrible, but I have become fixated on figure this out once and for all.

So that takes me to today. I am not sure where I should attack this problem from now. Should I installed a vinyl floor on top of the floating with a better underlayment? Should I throw in the towel on my bedroom ceiling and do a decoupled ceiling? Any suggestions on what would be the best approach?

I'm trying to do a budget soundproof of a garage for a recording studio, and I already did some construction (basically built a removable wall inside of the garage door and added a 2nd layer of drywall on resilient channels to the rest of the garage walls.) My removable wall is 2 thin wood sheets sandwiching a layer of foam insulation inside. It helps with most of the frequencies, but I can still hear low car rumbling noises from the street.

I don't really have much more to spend on it. I did notice that the inside of the garage door is divided into panels that I could easily stick sheets of something into. Do you think there's any cheap material that I could use for that?

Or are there any other ideas you might have? Also realized the garage door opener mechanics are still bolted straight into the ceiling joists and maybe that's transmitting vibrations... do you think some sort of sound dampening bolting system would be worth it?

I am looking to convert my laundry room (1st floor, next to driveway/ semi-busy 35mph street) into a bedroom.It currently has drywall on 3 sides, and 1950s plaster on driveway side (and I believe ceiling).

I am considering the option of opening all walls and redoing some electrical, and re-closing them with modern methods. Sound absorption is important to me, and I would like to not be able to hear conversations/cars in the bedroom (driveway wall).

I hear it's good, but I was not able to find the STC of plaster&lathe. Does anyone know it? My plaster is 1" thick with a gypsum board as base & mesh wire.

How do the current methods compare to plaster? I am familiar with the MLV/clip & furring channels, having installed your products in another room.

Is it worth opening this wall to add a couple romex cables, or should I leave it untouched? or just fur over it and try to fish the romex through the ceiling instead?

It is worth noting that this wall has a window, making decoupling through channels tricky.

elevation(topography), distance, temperature, frequency and intensity all contribute to how you are receiving the noise from the road. In order for you to see even the minimal reduction you would have to put a very tall wall either close to the source(best) or close enough to you for the shadow zone to give a value of reduction.